The Color Line

Memories

Harmony's POV

When I get home I walk straight up to my room. What Alex said today really hit me hard, and I feel like I've been emotionally drained.

I stare at the little journal that Alex gave me. I'm extremely curious about what's in it, but at the same time, I still don't know if its best to keep my distance from him or not.

I rub my temples, desperately trying to sooth my excruciating headache.

You're thinking too much, Harmony, My subconscious scolds me, Just read the damn thing.

"No need to be so pushy," I scoff out loud. "Oh lord I'm talking to myself again."

I cuddle myself under my blankets, waiting for my little sister to burst into my room. She didn't greet me at the door when I came home. Mom said she was playing in her room, but the little rugrat always runs downstairs as soon as she hears me at the door.

Maybe I should check on her. Hopefully she's just lost in play.

I get up from my bed, tossing Alex's journal on my pillow and head down the hall to Eve's room.

"Hey Eve, are you ok?" I ask as I push the door open. I find her sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, staring at a piece of paper in her hand.

"Harmy? Who is this?" she questions, holding the paper up to my face. I take it from her and to my surprise, its a picture of me and my father, exactly one year before he left. He took me to Centennial Park that day. We were having our usual daddy-daughter outing that we had every month. My hair is soaked in the picture and we're both smiling from ear to ear as other children play behind us.

Tears begin to form in my eyes. "Where did you find this?"

"It was in your jewelry box, way down at the bottom. I was gonna borrow your bunny earrings.... But who is that Harmy?"

"He's nobody," my voice cracks.

"Don't cry Harmy," Eve jumps up and hugs my legs. "I'll give your bunny earrings back. I'm sorry for taking them." She holds up the bunny earrings that Riley gave me for my birthday two years ago. I laugh a little at her worry for me.

"Keep them. I'll be ok Eve. You can get back to playing."

"Okay!" She beams. She continues to play with her doll house as I head back to my room.

The little picture ends up crumbled and thrown against the wall as soon as I step in my room. I don't even know why that picture was still in my possession. I could have sworn that I burned it years ago.

I look back and forth from the crumbled picture to the journal. Both Alex and my father have hurt me. They both got my hopes up and left me when it was convenient for them.

I remember my father's departure like it was yesterday...

It was Friday. Mama had just greeted me at the bus stop like she did every day. We got home and she said she needed to talk to me. She gave me cookies and sat down next to me on the sofa.

"Harmony, you're going to have a little brother or sister," she had said to me while clutching her stomach.

I remember being excited and also hoping and praying that I would have a little sister.

Mama said she wanted to surprise my father, so we got in the kitchen and made a cake for him. My mother loved making marble cakes and she specifically made this one pink and blue for boy or girl. The cake was beautiful and I was proud that I had helped make it. My mother put a little toy baby on the top and two bows on each level of the cake, and we patiently waited for my father to come home.

When he walked through the door, he looked tired. Mama and I greeted him from behind the table and as soon as he took sight of the cake, he froze.

"What is this?" he asked my mother.

"I made you a cake," she beamed. "I know things have been rocky between us lately, but I wanted to tell you that I'm pregnant."

He stared at her. "Do you think that we have the money for another one of those things? We don't even have enough for you to be making cakes like this"

"I...," she started before he interrupted her.

"I don't want to hear it. You need to get rid of that thing."

Tears formed in my mother's eyes. My father's eyes softened towards his crying wife, and he looked guilty and hurt. He stepped forward to wipe my mother's tears. She stepped back.

"Jacky I... I can't do this anymore. I'm tired of living like this. Things have been rocky between us since you got laid off. We barely have enough money for bills and we don't have enough food to last the week."

My mother looked down at her feet while my father walked upstairs to pack his things. I looked at my mother. Her eyes were red and tears were streaming down her cheeks.

She had just watched the man that she loved, the man that she spent her childhood with, who she fell in love with at age fourteen, whom she kissed under the sun in her cap and gown and three years later said "I do" to, the man who she raised her first child with, the man who was there for her every step of the way and worshipped the ground she walked on...she watched that man leave her life forever. She was broken. I felt like I heard her heart break from where I was standing.

My father came back downstairs with two suitcases. He saw my mother slumped over in the dining room chair. I remember him walking over to her with tears in his eyes, kissing her one last time and telling her that he would never stop loving her.

I didn't believe him. I never believed anything he said after that. He told me countless times that he would come and visit, come to my volleyball games, and come to the daddy daughter dance at my school. He never came.

I stopped playing volleyball that year. It was something that my father and I played while he helped me practice. We couldn't afford it anymore anyway, so I just forgot about it.

After that we couldn't live in our house anymore. We lived in the car for months with the little bit of food we had left. My mom would go to the store on the weekends with the money she had saved up over the last year. Sometimes she wouldn't eat so that I could. I refused to let her starve because she was starving the baby. Most of the time I only ate at school.

I remember developing a strong hatred for my father. I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it either. He had abandoned us. He left his pregnant wife who he had fallen in love with at a young age and spent his life loving. He left his daughter who thought of him as her superhero and admired and adored him. He had everything, much like those fairy tales that I read back then. His life was set but a lack of money made him lose sight of it all.

I heard from my cousin later on that he had a new wife. She was ridiculously rich and they lived in a mansion. They had a son together. Some said that he never looked happy though. He always looked as if he were missing something, they said.

I didn't care about his unhappiness. He was gone and he left by choice so why should I care? He wanted to abort Eve and then had a child with someone else. He had transformed from a superhero into a villain in my world.

I occasionally blamed myself for him leaving, as every child does. I always had problems with trust after that.

Because afterall, if my own father could just stop loving me like that, then how could I beleive that anyone else could?